Tag: Book Review

The L.A. Times

The conservative rich kid who found his place on television and in politics

How’s this for a story line? Rich kid grows up on the East Coast, not far from Manhattan. He’s utterly convinced of the rightness of his ideas and not at all shy about telling people who disagree with him that they’re wrong and making it abundantly clear that he thinks he’s smarter than they are. His out-there personality draws the attention of television producers, he gets a TV show, becomes a national celebrity and runs for office as a world-class provocateur, taking on both Democrats and the leaders of his own Republican Party. Even though he has never run for anything before, he runs for the biggest office on the ballot and he is quite clearly the intimidator, not the intimidated.

That’s the premise of MIT professor Heather Hendershot’s new book, and as you’ll have immediately realized, it’s a true story. The rich kid is Bill Buckley.

Read the article: http://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-ca-jc-buckley-debate-20161026-story.html

The Atlantic Monthly

In the Age of Trump, No Wonder Republicans Miss William F. Buckley

The conservative thinker’s work is a reminder of how intellectually self-satisfied politicians and cable-news have become.

William F. Buckley Jr. could have made Donald Trump quiver with impotent rage. This is a guy who sent Ayn Rand postcards in liturgical Latin just to make her mad, and then bragged about it in her obituary. In part because of his trollish panache, the founder of National Review and longtime host of the television showFiring Line was a conservative mascot in life, and he has become mythologized in death. The 2016 election has made it clear that no one quite like Buckley is working in media today: Republicans are hurting for a cocksure slayer of pseudo-conservative invaders.

No wonder two Buckley retrospectives have come out this October. Open to Debate, by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology media-studies professor Heather Hendershot, examines Buckley’s tenure on Firing Line and the diverse ideologies represented on the show.

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The National Review

Firing Line at 50

by NEAL B. FREEMAN

It is the contention of liberal scholar Heather Hendershot that Firing Line, the long-running television series hosted by William F. Buckley Jr., was bracing, original, occasionally electric, frequently heuristic, and, all weighty things considered, a major contribution to civilized discourse. Allowing for typical professorial understatement, I think she may be on to something.

Professor Hendershot, who teaches media studies at MIT, has just published a magisterial account not only of a television program, but also, more ambitiously, of the political culture from which it sprang and within which it thrived. She tells this story with style and insight and good humor, some of the latter borrowed from WFB but much of it her own. The gem of her hefty book is a long introduction that limns memorably the narrative line and the leading character, all of it based on what appears to be, as the leading character might have put it, Stakhanovite research.

Read the review here: https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2016-10-24-0100/heather-hendershot-open-to-debate

 

Publishers Weekly

“In her view, Buckley was the “major conservative public intellectual” of post-WWII America, and Firing Line is “a model for what smart political TV once was,” contrasting with today’s on-air incivility…Using interviews and transcripts, Hendershot does more than tell the history of a uniquely influential show and personality; her thorough, compelling, and very readable book provides a three-decade journey through the center of the nation’s intellectual life.”

Read the review- http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-06-243045-8

Open To Debate on the Conservative Book Club

Author Interview with Conservative Book Club About Bill Buckley Book

“In a fresh take on William F. Buckley, Jr., the preeminent leader of the early conservative movement, author Heather Hendershot takes us behind the scenes of Buckley’s TV show called “Firing Line” in her new book: “Open to Debate: How William F. Buckley Put Liberal America on the Firing Line. The show was on air for 33 years and helped make conservatism respectable in mainstream culture. If you love Bill Buckley, you’ll love this”

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MIT News coverage of Open To Debate

Changing the face of conservatism in the U.S.

New book by professor Heather Hendershot explores impact of William F. Buckley’s “Firing Line.”

Peter Dizikes | MIT News Office

“We are in a moment when the loudest voices seem to be the most extreme,” Hendershot says.

And as strongly as Buckley held to his conservative views, Hendershot thinks, he promoted on “Firing Line” a very different ethos of public debate than the one we have today.

“You could come to it as a conservative and become a better, smarter conservative, or come to it as a liberal and become a better, smarter liberal,” Hendershot says. “He was willing to accept that people might listen to a liberal and think, ‘That’s a good idea.’ But he thought he would win. That is a kind of model that we can take a lot from.”

Read the article here: http://news.mit.edu/2016/book-changing-face-conservatism-us-firing-line-1004

The Wall Street Journal

Reading Bill Buckley in the Age of Trump

Clark S. Judge reviews ‘Open to Debate’ by Heather Hendershot and ‘A Torch Kept Lit’ edited by James Rosen.

“A second book featuring Bill Buckley takes up still another aspect of his public persona. The author, Heather Hendershot, is a professor of film and media at MIT. “Open to Debate: How William F. Buckley Put Liberal America on The Firing Line” is a survey and critique of the television program that did so much, over three decades, to make Buckley a celebrity presence in national life.”

Read the article- http://www.wsj.com/articles/reading-bill-buckley-in-the-age-of-trump-1475267507

Open to Debate

How William F. Buckley Put Liberal America on the Firing Line

https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062430458/open-to-debate

low rez cover“Hendershot lauds Buckley for the intelligence, honesty, wit, civility, and élan with which he developed meaningful dialogues … A cogent reminder of what political broadcasting could be.”
—Booklist (starred review)

“Clever…a good introduction not only to Buckley and smart conservative thought but (strange concept) a sadly disappeared politics of civility.”
—Los Angeles Times

“William F. Buckley and his long-running, unique show Firing Line provides a window (if sometimes a curved mirror) through which to see a turbulent and transformative time in American politics. If you want to step into a time machine for a look back, this book is your ticket.”
—Ira Glasser, American Civil Liberties Union Executive Director 1978-2001 

“Hendershot does more than tell the history of a uniquely influential show and personality; her thorough, compelling, and very readable book provides a three-decade journey through the center of the nation’s intellectual life.”
—Publishers Weekly

“A thoroughly researched work replete with intelligence, admiration, balanced criticism, and even a bit of nostalgia.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

A unique and compelling portrait of William F. Buckley as the champion of conservative ideas in an age of liberal dominance, taking on the smartest adversaries he could find while singlehandedly reinventing the role of public intellectual in the network television era.

When Firing Line premiered on American television in 1966, just two years after Barry Goldwater’s devastating defeat, liberalism was ascendant. Though the left seemed to have decisively won the hearts and minds of the electorate, the show’s creator and host, William F. Buckley—relishing his role as a public contrarian—made the case for conservative ideas, believing that his side Continue reading “Open to Debate”